Another Memorial Weekend at Washaway Beach

4 years ago this weekend we spent Memorial Day at Wash-Away Beach in Tokeland, Wa and came home to find out Monday that we were pregnant with our little man. It was 5 year ago that we took our little puppy, Hurlie, that we had gotten the day before out to her first trip to the beach. And it was just a short 7 1/2 years ago that I took this cute new guy I was dating (Joel) out to meet my parents for a weekend of camping.

We have spent a weekend here and there at this property for years and it is always a fun, family boring weekend out of town. Sadly the beach is slowly encroaching on the property and our trips out there are numbered. This is the first trip that we weren't even able to get beach access... But even without beach access it was a fabulous weekend with great food, family and lots of relaxing in our new RV. Lily stayed in the top bunk a couple of nights in with Bennett and I think I heard him whisper "hey lily" about a million times.
(Thank you again Teri for most of the pics)

Bennett was dancing and I couldn't help myself from encouraging it a bit more... too cute!

 Helping Grandma with dinner

 Checking out the water from the end of the road... it used to be about 4 more blocks away

 A little self portrait of Mama and Annie girl

 Relaxing with the family... loving the new RV

Olsen Family Birthday Extravaganza

So the Olsen family usually tries to get together for every birthday... but as April and May roll around we get swamped with Birthdays and today we caved to combining them for one big afternoon. Yes today we celebrated, count em, 7 birthdays!! Mine, Austin, Alanso, Luz, Sandy, Dane and Shar's. It was another fun day with the whole Olsen family just enjoying time together and playing with the kiddos. It was the first time that Annie is really old enough to be passed around and enjoyed and boy did she love it. She was talking up a storm with Grandma and Grandpa and loved the Aunties passing her around like crazy. I must admit she wore one of my favorite outfits and looked beautiful all day.

Bennett couldn't have had a better time, He loves his cousins and ate up every second on the famous Traxtor. This is the first time that I have seen this machine but I feel like I know it well from how much Bennett talks about it. He saw it at the cabin a couple months ago and since then if he bring it up, which he does often, he gets very frustrated if people assume he says "tractor" he immediately explains that it is a "traxtor! not tractor!!!" I wouldn't be surprised if this kid slept until noon tomorrow!

 This blanket she is laying on was her Daddy's blanket!!! Sooo cute!!!

Annie June, 3 months

I thought it would be a good time for a little update on the Babe, Since this is my one and only "baby book" for all the kids I thought I should keep everyone and myself up to date on all current Annie events.

She has packed on the pounds and is running about 12.25 lbs. She is still pretty little and according to babycenter.com that is somewhere between the 25th and 50th percentile.

I hate to admit it and I am hoping this doesn't jinx us but she is the easiest baby on the planet. She definitely has her days and nights figured out because she is awake most of the day and sleeps like a champ at night getting up once to eat and sleeping until 6 am when her daddy takes her into the bathroom to get ready for his day and have some daddy daughter conversation... that sounds kinda weird but she loves the sound of the shower and I love laying in bed and listening to him talk to her.

She loves people talking to her and especially my singing, it is terrible and I am sure only a 3 month old daughter could love my never ending version of "this little light of mine"

She is loving her gym lately and it just in the very beginning of trying to grab and bat at toys. She is still really just into people watching. I am not surprised to find out that another one of my children hates tummy time but we give it our best shot.

She is breastfed during the day and usually gets one bottle at night, she doesn't eat a ton mostly just snacking every couple hours but she is putting on the pounds great so I am not going to worry about it.

She loves going for jogs in the stroller and being outside on a blanket or in the ergo on walks. She just stares at the trees and watches the dog in awe of everything in her world.

My favorite new Annie thing is her talking... I can not even count the number of iphone videos I have taken of her cooing. Bennett had his trach in before he started cooing and then he was mute until he was 11 months old and I never heard his voice until that day. But this little lady loves to chat. She mostly only coos when she is sitting facing you. She looks at your mouth like, wait a second I think I can make those sounds too! and then will concentrate for a second and let out the sweetest sound in the world.

It is funny how when other babies start all these things like smiling, cooing etc it is just normal baby stuff and when your kids does it it is just a magical miracle to watch. I love her more and more each day and especially now that I can see her little personality coming out. She is a magical part of our family and I cant imagine our life without her.

Just another day in the park

It looks like it might be the last sunny day for about the next week so we got out and enjoyed it with Aunt Katie, and Cousins Reece and Cash. We spent the morning at Penny Playground, a playground that they built when I was in elementary. I actually remember collecting pennies to donate to its creation I think I raised like $13 which to a 12 year old back then was a lot of pennies.

We then went to the splash park and the boys loved it! Bennett adores his cousins and the mamas adored the sunshine!

 Grandma, Grandpa and I had some relaxing time while my 3 year old slept off the splash park this afternoon. We spent most of the time smiling at this little one... Here she is enjoying some Grandpa time!

Out for a family jog

The Olsens have been attempting to use up every bit of sunshine out there which in Olympia is usually pretty hard to come by. Running (or more of a slow jog) has been something I have loved for a while. But it wasn't until I had children that I really understood how relaxing it is... It has become an activity with the kids where they are either sitting in the stroller or home with Daddy :) and I love it... a few minutes a day I don't have to be barfed on or talk to Bennett about his poop. Not that I don't enjoy those things the other 23 hours a day... but sometimes you don't realize how much you need it until you get out there.

With the great weather Joel jumped in on the fun and we headed out to Capital Lake. This is one of my favorite places in the nice weather and there were a ton of people out and it was soooo fun to jog as a family. I know we are going to do it many more times this summer!

Bennett was pretty stoked about the running and after we had gone about 4 miles we stopped and Bennett and I jogged about 100 yards and Bennett was running like he heard the rocky song in his head, it was hilarious and anybody that passed us started out loud laughing. Too cute!!

Here is our little lady out on the patio watching mama plant some flowers this afternoon... this family is loving the sunshine!!!

Happy Mama's Day

What a beautiful weekend! Grandma & Grandpa Jones and the sisters and all the kiddos had a weekend away planned camping but at the last minute we decided to just camp out at Grandma and Grandpas house... I was a little nervous because with all 6 kids under one roof it can get a little crazy... but it turned out being a perfectly crazy weekend, enjoying the kids, my sisters and just some good ol' fashion family time in the sun!

We have decided that this is going to be the summer of the naked babes. "Phase One" (we lovingly call Bennett Reece and Evelyn this because my sisters and I all had our first babies within 10 months of each other... then our second within 14 months) Anyway "phase one" are all officially on potty training mode and as soon as one looses their pants outside, they all join in and with the pool out there were no underpants in sight!

Not only was in Mom's Day but we also celebrated Uncle Kippy's Birthday! and I was delighted because this meant Grandma would make a cake! Yum!

Happy Mothers day to all the mothers out there... but selfishly I have spent most of the weekend and day today just in awe of how lucky of a mama I am. I get to celebrate Mom's day with my mom and sisters and my kids, who even with the craziness that 3 year olds and newborns bring... I feel so blessed to have them! I love you Bennett and Anna, You make my life so happy!
 Getting the mail with Grandpa

Yep that is Bennett in the lead on a rooster, Evelyn a close second on a duck and Reece pulling up the rear on a chicken

Why is it that little girls love babies... So sweet to see Evelyn with her new little cousin in matching PJ's that Grandma got them

Bennett was not to be outdone by Evie... he wanted to hold his sister and get his picture taken too

Check out this bikini babe

I am pretty sure her eyes couldnt be any darker... and sweeter :)

Checking out Grandma's Garden... oh lord when will potty training be over?!

Grandma and Phase One watching Grandpa set up the swing set area...

 Uncle Marty's tractor is the best baby sitter ever... he would stand there and watch all day if he could

Bennett "helping" Uncle Kippy with those candles :)

All this play makes for one sleepy Grandma... Annie and Grandma catching some mid day rest.

These two kiddos needed a bath after the long crazy weekend outside playing... This little chunk-a-munk is now weighing in at 12 lbs even! she loved her bath time at home after a run in the jogger with mom enjoying this mornings beautiful sunshine... a great way to share the day with the little people that make me a mama.

The girls do Bloomsday 2012

Annie had her first "Ladies weekend". Her and I left with my cousin Teri on Friday morning for a weekend away in Eastern Washington with our Aunt Pam to do Bloomsday for the first time.

Teri and I drove over to Richland Friday night and we settled in quickly with Uncle Paul treating us to something fabulous from the wine cellar. I quickly decided that Annie and I could get used to girls weekends away! We loved getting to spend some quiet time with Craig, Ryan, Emily and little Miss Paige.

We continued on our full girls weekend and hit one of Pam's favorite sewing shops and wine tasting Saturday morning... I couldn't have thought of two things I wanted to do more. Annie loved her first wine tasting trip with the ladies, just hanging out in the sling and sweetly looking around taking in all the girl talk.

Paige LOVED Annie and wanted her to sit next to her baby... Annie loved it too :)

We woke bright and early Sunday morning, (like 4 in the morning early) and groggily drove to Spokane. When we got there I was a little unimpressed with the outfits the ladies were trying to get me to wear. All we were seeing we super fast looking runners and there was no way I was going to put on that silly hat. But I finally decided, oh what the heck! But as we neared the starting line and found our way to the very last section (the only place strollers of any kind are allowed) there started to be more festive folks and the other tutus and silly costumes started to add up.

In the end the costumes we a crack up and Annie loved staring at Mommy in that crazy hair. We had many people say stuff like "next year we are for sure doing that!" We even got interviewed for some local TV channel, when Teri chatted up the camera guy and I quickly hid and tended to baby :)

We waited in the start like and the first runners were off... but as you can imagine there being about 50,000 people between us and the start line it took a while. It was fun chatting it up and I must admit I was a bit prideful when another mom called me a "hardcore mom" due to my breastfeeding in the middle of the road sitting on the ground. We neared the start line somewhere about 10:10 (let it be noted that my friend Shannon who was in the fast runners group had already started and finished the race before we crossed the starting line)

It was such a fun walk. Bands all over, people sitting in every yard waving and cheering. The amount of people involved was staggering. It was such a great atmosphere of hope and happiness. Of the 56,000 participants, we saw walkers from little ladies Annie's age to a woman 90 and another man who was 95 making the 7.6 mile trek through the Spokane streets.

We spent most of it just walking (it was against the very strict rules for us to run with a stroller), girl talking, and people watching. I can not wait to do it again next year!

We headed back to Richland after the race and had another relaxing family evening before heading home on Monday.

It was a great girls get away for me and my girl, I havent felt this spoiled in ages, but I missed my two favorite guys!

Our lil' athlete! Ready to Walk!

 "Hardcore Mama"

 People throw their clothes in the trees when they get started after waiting in the cold and the goodwill comes and pics them up... the trees were full for the first mile.

It was this full for the entire length of the race and people were finishing before we started...

 Well done Annie! She was a little too good... just zonked in the stroller :) I cant wait to go on runs with her when she can actually run :)

Fishing with Daddy

Last year was the first year Joel invited the whole family on his annual "guys fishing weekend" at Lake Jameson near Euphrata WA. We were talking as we neared the lake and we realized Joel has been making this same voyage east on opening fishing weekend for nearly 18 years. But this is only the second time all the grown up college boys have invited their growing families and we loved it.

We thanked the parenting gods after spending 5 hours in the car on the way there we had no meltdowns, only 1 pit stop for breastfeeding, lots of well needed hours for mom reading her kindle in shotgun and only about 1.5 hours of the "are we there yet"s from our little man kicking the back of his dads seat.

We had a ton of fun in our maiden voyage in our new camping rig... it definitely felt like luxury compared to our last RV and although it wasn't actually a camp ground and more a grassy field without hookups it was still a great place for the kids to play, close to the fishing water and full of great food, fun and friends.

Bennett and Annie were great little fisher people catching 2 fish this year!! After most of the group left we had a relaxing last day with the Peltzer family playing baseball, fishing and cooking steaks... Bennett loves Brooke and Luke! So cute watching him chase them around! I love getting out as our little family of four! many more weekends like this to come this summer!

 He loved holding the dead fish (such a boy) He told me this one was hungry and kept trying to feed him breakfast. He even kissed it... yuck! Our friends Christy and Troy loved sharing their fish with Bennett... gross but adorable!

 Yep even Mama fished

 I think I heard "what's Matt doing?!" like a million times... He loves him!

 She even got in some fishing time

 Loving the trailer time with mommy

 Trying out his friends two wheeler... he will be without training wheels before we know it

 First movie night in the trailer

 I promise our doggie didn't have her enormous head in her car seat the whole drive... but these three were nearly perfect on the 10 hour round trip drive.

Our sweetie playing while mama packed up the trailer... growing up so fast